Morgan
Spurlock performs an experiment in movie production and marketing with The
Greatest Movie Ever Sold. As a
concept, it's fascinating. How far
can Spurlock go in creating a movie that is entirely funded and about product
placement? Even before he starts
approaching different companies looking for money in exchange for giving their
products roles as diverse as a top-billed star to walk-by cameos, the director
expresses reasonable doubts. Will
anyone go along with the stunt? Is
there even a point beyond its existence as one?

If
we take the scientific process metaphor further, the problem with The
Greatest Movie Ever Sold is that it lacks a hypothesis. The closest Spurlock comes to presenting one is in bringing up
discussions he's had with fellow filmmakers about the subject. His big-budget-minded colleagues argue that inserting brands into their
work is essential to getting them off the ground, and his independent filmmaker
friends argue that if they had similar access to such a financial opportunity,
their movies would fare better at the box office.

This,
of course, means that Spurlock's experiment is still—even with the movie
itself complete—underway, leading him to make appearances on late-night talk
shows (seen late in the movie itself) wearing a suit embroidered with the logos
of the various companies that gave him money to feature their products. This is a test that is sure to have studios and box office gurus and
filmmakers with dollar signs on the mind scanning whatever the results may be to
check this movie's success or failure as a money-making machine. That, of course, leaves those who do not care about such things—and
even have a difficult time trying to do so—in the dark.

As
a gag, it's safe, because no one who isn't in on the joke is on the screen. Spurlock begins his pursuit with cold calls to major
corporations. The movie, he supposes, needs things like an official drink, an official
car, an official airline, etc., etc. Most
of these phone calls, at first, lead nowhere. Whatever discussion Spurlock may have had with the legal departments of
companies that decided their sponsorship was not in its best interest are
omitted. This leaves a fairly
sizeable gap in the process. Why the
hesitation to acknowledge a practice we see every day, almost everywhere (A
visit to the city of São Paulo, Brazil, which outlawed outdoor advertising in
2007, is like a trip to a forgotten world)?

"Brand"
is a word thrown out a lot at meeting after meeting Spurlock attends in board
rooms full of chairs, long tables, and smiling executives whose facial
expressions range from blank stares to hollow smiles of understanding (They wait
until the cameras are off to say no). Their
concerns are how it will affect the company's "brand recognition" and
"brand personality." This
is, after all, the man who ate big-name fast food for a whole month to show the
detrimental health effects of a high-calorie, high-fat, and high-preservative
diet, so it's really no wonder so many companies don't allow him more courtesy
than a succinct denial.

What
we do see are a gaggle of advertising-minded people, who run businesses that
reduce a product and the company that makes and distributes it into a set of
words. Spurlock undergoes the
process, bringing in photos of his family and art that he appreciates to show
what kind of person he is. The
advisor reduces his entire life to two words: mindful and playful. With this dehumanizing ammunition in hand, he starts to find companies
somewhat eager to attach themselves to the project, with, of course, a few
stipulations.

Spurlock
finally obtains its major sponsor, allowing for the title to appear a full
thirty minutes into the movie, and since it's a juice, from there on out,
everywhere he goes he's carrying a bottle of it around and every other drink the
camera spots is blurred out. He must
also insert commercials into the movie at sporadic intervals, and he even
successful sells Ralph Nader on a pair of shoes. The interviews, like that one, are oddities, since Spurlock must somehow
balance the skeptical talk from consumer advocates with his own semi-ironic
selling out.

The
movie as a whole has this unusual sense of detachment, as Spurlock is left in a
quandary of being unable to take a stance, meaning that he, perhaps
unintentionally, takes the position of those footing the bill. As a social experiment for the effects of marketing, the results of The
Greatest Movie Ever Sold might hold some weight; as an entity unto itself,
it's in limbo.